Daniel's Pacific NW Garden

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Overwintered cannas & zantedeschia: ready for Spring

Today I cleaned up and potted the "overwinter dry" tropicals. Those that were in the ground were dug up and stored in open containers, with clinging soil as their only protection. Those in containers were just moved inside. THey were stored in the garage, which is attached but not heated. It's probably in the 40s to 50s in the winter.

Here they are, dry and crispy. I removed the potting soil vs. garden soil from the cannas. Some of the zantedeschias were already bare (oops) but they were plump and healthy looking. One zantedeschia container, that I have grown for about 15 years, was unpotted. It was packed solid with tubers. I did some damage to delicate sprouts but overall I think they should be OK.

Here are some cannas about to be potted. The rhizomes are plump and healthy looking.

Here are a few more. Oops, I didn't label them when I placed them into storage. This may be several varieties.

The plan is to have a tropical looking deck this year. I think that the cannas will do better in containers, where they'll be warmer (for an earlier start) and can be moved around as needed.

Filled with potting soil.

Moved to the south exposure sun deck. It's not really that sunny now but it;s better than the north side.

"Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most"

From Mark Twain

Saturday, March 15, 2008

"Gene's Backyard Orchard" Web Site Review #1.

Here is a site that visits Gene and his backyard orchard, in a Chicago Suburb.

Gene has been growing dwarf apples in his yard since 1983. He has 93 varieties of apples in a 2,500 sq foot yard. He keeps them pruned and maintained to a mini-dwarf size - generally, smaller than our fruit trees (although similar to our mini-dwarf apples).

Visting his web site, I get the feeling that I'm visiting a real person's yard. It would be fun to follow him around the yard and hear what he has to say about the individual varieties, and talk about his grafting technique and what works, and what doesnt.

He's not organic, but does pay some attention to avoiding spraying when bees are present. He tells us how he knows that an apple is ripe. He describes why his beds are geometric, squares instead of circles.

This is the kind of folksy, 'next door neighbor' site that I especially like to read. It's kind of an old posting. On a news story link from the the midwest fruit grower's site, he states that he now has 176 varieties.

This also has me thinking - with a California Rare Fruit Grower's association, and a similar association in the midwest (see link above), maybe we need a backyard fruit growers association in the Maritime Pacific Northwest. Hmmmmm.

Asparagus Planting (delayed entry, planted 2 14 08)

These were the asparagus starts that I planted 2 14 08. Other people eat chocolate or send cards with red hearts. I plant asparagus.

See today's entry below for how it looks now. Sprouts are 1 to 4 inches tall today.

These starts are bigger and plumper than I tried last year. They are mail order from Raintree.com.

This time they were soaked in water. Soaking time was about 2 hours.

They were planted in a trench. I covered them with a couple of inches of soil, wtihout filling in the trench completely. This is closer to the 'traditional' method, so hopefully I did it right this time.

What's Growing March 15 2008

VIctoria Rhubarb. This has been fertilized with generous helping of Chicken Compost, after earlier servings of Starbucks Coffee Grounds. The mulch is chopped yard waste, mostly trimmings from lavendar and grasses. Can rhubarb pie be far behind?

Chinese chives. Similar supplements as the rhubarb, but the mulch is bark mulch. This is more weed prone than the rhubarb, so I wanted something less likely to allow seeds to sprout. Chive dumplings ahead, in about one month....

Success at last! At least, in so far as getting purchased asparagus starts to sprout. So far 7 of the 10 planted have come up. On from of the asparagus, potato onions, about 5th generation of saving starts. This time I want to settle on this one heirloom variety only.